Immigrants Love America the Most

To us, America is a place. To them, America is an idea.

Thoughts from comedian/author Matt Ruby. Want more? Sign up here to get my newsletter.

The funny thing is I rarely even think about my dad as an immigrant. But yesterday, my sister mentioned it and I was like “oh yeah.” I had to be reminded he was from somewhere else. Because he’s the most american person I’ve ever met.

He came to this country in his 20s because he loved the America that he saw in movies and what it stood for. He was obsessed with John Wayne and Gary Cooper. He wanted to be some sort of Jewish sheriff.

So he got on a plane knowing no one and stayed at the YMCA and worked at an airline ticket counter and went to college and then law school. He became a prosecutor. Worked with Giuliani as an assistant DA in New York and then at the US Attorney’s office. Put a lot of bad hombres in jail.

He was super patriotic about this country (and a diehard law-and-order Republican who loved Goldwater, Reagan, Jack Kemp, and James Baker — back when the GOP actually had ideas). My dad would talk about America in a way, that, well…I’ve never heard anyone born here talk that way. It was something only an outsider could get. It was a love based on what America means to the rest of the world.

And that’s what Trump doesn’t get. Immigrants are the most American. They value this country in a way that natives don’t. We take it for granted. To us, America is a place. To them, America is an idea. It’s a beacon. It stands for something. We get all that handed to us. They had to chase it down and fight for it.

And that’s perhaps the most ridiculous thing about Trump. In his quest to “Make America Great Again,” he is continually attacking the things that actually make America great: a free press, the rule of law, the constitution, religious freedom, etc. Those are the things that make america a symbol to the world.

When my dad was dying from cancer a few years ago, I asked him, “What do you love?” He paused. He was on a lot of morphine. Then he said, “Country.” “You mean America?” “Yes.” “Why?” “Because it gave the rest of the world hope.”

Related: More about my father and his death.

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